WASHINGTON -- Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Higginson of New Orleans is President Barack Obama's choice to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

The White House on Thursday evening announced that Obama intends to nominate Higginson, the longtime head of the appellate division in the office of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Higginson is also an associate professor of law at Loyola University.

"Stephen Higginson is a distinguished candidate for the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit," Obama said. "Both his legal and academic credentials are impressive, and his commitment to judicial integrity is unwavering. I am confident he will serve the American people with distinction."

"I am pleased that President Obama has announced this evening that he intends to nominate such a highly qualified and distinguished candidate as Stephen Higginson to be an appellate court judge," Landrieu said. "He is a brilliant student of the Constitution and has the balance, temperament, compassion and intellect needed to effectively rule on the 5th Circuit."

"Steve Higginson will make an outstanding U.S. 5th Circuit Court judge -- his intellect and work ethic as a federal prosecutor have won him admiration from all quarters," Vitter said. "I'm delighted the president followed my and Sen. Landrieu's advice. Based on this, I'll be signing both Steve Higginson's and Judge Triche-Milazzo's blue slips immediately."

The Judiciary Committee provides the senators from a court nominee's home state with a blue slip. If the senator returns the blue slip, it means they are OK with the committee proceeding with hearings on the nominee, though it doesn't necessarily mean they will back the nomination.

Vitter's comment helps explain his silence when the president nominated Jane Margaret Triche-Milazzo, a state district court judge from Napoleonville, who was recommended by Landrieu for a seat on the federal district court in March.

Higginson's appointment, however, marks the second day in a row that Landrieu and Vitter have stood shoulder to shoulder behind a New Orleans judicial nominee. On Wednesday, the two Louisiana senators were side by side at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing offering effusive praise for New Orleans City Attorney Nannette Jolivette-Brown, whom Obama nominated for a seat on the federal district court bench.

A federal prosecutor for two decades, Higginson is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. He also earned a master in philosophy from Cambridge University in England.

After graduating from Yale Law School, Higginson was a law clerk to Patricia Wald of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The following year, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Byron White.

He has been an assistant U.S. attorney since 1989, when he joined the Criminal Division in the District of Massachusetts. Since 1993, Higginson has worked in New Orleans, where he became the chief of appeals in 1995, personally handling or supervising all criminal and civil appeals, editing or writing more than 100 appellate briefs, and presenting numerous oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on which he would, if confirmed, serve.

Higginson is married to Collette Creppell, who is a former director of the New Orleans City Planning Commission.